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Saturday, April 29, 2017

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"Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering."

Friday, April 14, 2017

Gilda's Club Chicago ended its programming at Rush University Medical Center yesterday.

It was one of the most difficult, most unusual, and most rewarding teaching experiences I've ever had.

From 1:30-2:30 I'd teach chair yoga in the cancer outpatient floor of the professional building. The students tended to be open to a lot of the chanting and visualization I learned from Sri Dharma Mittra, and the chair and gentle yoga practices I'd learned from Lakshmi Om and Sister Leslie at the Shanti Niketan ashram.

Sometimes there wouldn't be any students, and I'd go into the waiting room and do "outreach," telling the patients about Gilda's Club and our programs. I initially had a lot of resistance to this, since it went against some notion I had about "not selling" yoga. I got over it (mostly).

From 2:30-3:30 I'd go to the inpatient ward in the beautiful butterfly-shaped tower, where I'd go from room to room asking long-term stem cell transplant, bone marrow transplant, and chemo patients if they would like to "do relaxation" (savasana) for ten minutes. We did not call it savasana.

You never knew what you would get when you opened the door; some were grateful to see you, some were afraid, some were asleep or indisposed, and some were hostile; one lady was choking and suffering terribly from taking a large pill. It ran the whole gamut and it was a wonderful lesson for me not to take things personally.

This group of students spanned every imaginable color, ethnicity and background.

Once, there was a policemen outside of a patient's door - not to keep him from leaving, but to keep others from coming in and harming him.

Once, I walked in and asked a very thin patient who was relaxing in an easy chair how he was feeling. "I'm great!" he said, with a big, missing-tooth smile. "I'm homeless!" He seemed to be relishing the luxury of being in the hospital.

Oftentimes, the patient only spoke Spanish, so I taught in Spanish.

Once, I taught a man who only spoke Italian in Spanish (in an Italian accent). It worked!

It always worked, when the patients and their family / friends were open to it. I was just the guide.

That was the real lesson: to be open to things (my tendency is to be closed, and this does not work).

This experience also helped me come to terms with the deaths of my parents from cancer in 1997 and 1999.

Now the classes are moving to Gilda's Club Chicago's downtown clubhouse. I found this out while driving to the Mumbai airport last week.

Monday, April 10, 2017

How lovely to see Sri Dharma Mittra this weekend!
and to be blessed by seeing so many longtime students (they and Sri Dharma are the first people I laid eyes on - other than the cashiers at Jewel - since returning from India. I'd been quite ill and disoriented, and it made me feel better - and "home" - immediately). Jai Guru!

My writeup of the workshop will appear in the May/June issue of Yoga Chicago

Thursday, April 06, 2017

Wednesday, April 05, 2017

Kamakhya Devi Temple in Assam is considered one of the oldest among the 52 shakti peeths of India.

The temple is situated at the peak of Nilanchal Parvat in the Western direction of Guwahati city.

There is no statue, idol or image of Devi in the temple, but in the corner of the cave in the temple, there is sculptured image of the yoni or Vagina of the goddess, which is the object of worship and reverence.

The natural divine atmosphere around the temple keeps the stone image moist.

The kamakhya Devi temple is a temple complex of individual temples of all ten Mahavidyas.

Three Devi as Tripura Sundari, Matangi and Kamala reside in main temple premises and other seven as Baglamukhi, Chinnamasta, kali, Tara Bhairavi and Dhumavati are established in individual temples outside the Kamakhya Devi temple.

This temple is one of the significant destination for the gernal Hindu Pilgrimages specially Tantric worhsipper and it is said none tantric get the perfection in his tantra method unless he once visit this temple and worship Maa kamakhya Devi

This temple was destroyed and ignored during the tenure of many dynasties and rebuilt or got recognition in several times lastly it was rebuilt in the 17th century by king Nara Narayana.

Tuesday, April 04, 2017

Visited on the 20th death anniversary of my mother - which is also the O.M.'s father's death anniversary. Jai Ma!

"When the Supreme Devi [goddess] is well-pleased with the worship of the devotee, She turns into vichara [self-enquiry] in him and shines as the blazing Sun in the expanse of his Heart.

"If once vichara takes root, the highest good has, for all practical purposes, been reached in this life. As long as vichara is absent from a human being, the most desirable form of birth, so long is the tree of life barren and therefore useless. The only useful fruit of life is vichara."